A Time for Heroes
by SeedsAndMisdeeds
Summary: There's no place for naivety in Gotham City and, according to Bruce Wayne, that means there's no place for a girl like Isolde, who only seems to attract trouble. With the Joker escaping Arkham, the situation becomes dire but the more Bruce tells her to leave, the more she resists and the more he finds himself wanting her to stay. No matter how much he enjoys watching her walk away


**Disclaimer: Shocking as it is, I don't actually own Batman…I know, who would have thought it? I just own the OC and her story… not so lucrative but still, small pleasures and all that…**

**Author's Note: Bonjour! Welcome to the fic – I hope it's to your liking and that you if it is you'll let me know. Character might appear a little Mary-Sue like in this chapter but I promise you she, like the rest of us, isn't even close to perfect. Hope you enjoooy :)**

Nobody talks about how pretty Gotham is.

You hear a lot about how big it is. How grimy. The economic divide, the capitalist nature, the terrible public school system and corrupt government officials. You hear about the lack of hospital funding, the potholes on 67th street, the infamous Arkham Asylum and Wayne Enterprises.

You hear about the crime. My God, do you hear about the crime. The murders, the robberies, the rapes and assaults. The Mob – _everyone_ knows about the Mob – and their money-laundering, stealing and gruesome initiation ceremonies. And some weird, crime-fighting vigilante with an unhealthy penchant for leather and nocturnal rodents.

But, stood by the bay window of her new apartment, Isolde couldn't deny that Gotham City truly was beautiful. Lit up spectacularly in bright lights, permeated by skyscrapers and littered with festive decorations she wondered briefly if the warm feeling of opportunity in the pit of her stomach, an exciting notion of potentiality, was simply fostered by the fuzzy atmosphere that only December could create.

Isolde loved Christmas.

And Christmas made her love everything else.

Shivering slightly with a grin, she rubbed slim fingers up and down the soft, cream material of her sweater and moved from her station to the kettle, shaking stars from her eyes as she set it to heat.

A cup of tea would warm her bones.

Leaning on the island counter of her kitchen Isolde glanced around at the semi-empty cardboard boxes strewn haphazardly across the beige carpet, only half of them correctly labelled she had discovered, and pondered just how much longer it would take to pack away the rest of her stuff.

_Not stuff, _she thought venomously, _crap. Why the hell do I own so much crap? _She turned to the kitten lazing languidly on the living room coffee table, rolling to get comfortable on the unfamiliar spot, and shook her head at the little fluff-machine.

"This, Chaucer, is an addiction to consumerism at its finest. I am a perfect child of capitalism, a pioneer of the free-market, if you will! If Marx could see me now he would suffocate me with his beard, no second thought." The cat tilted its head, seemingly unimpressed. "You're an intellectual," she continued, pouring hot water into the mug she'd set aside, flinching at the high-pitch whistle the pan had begun to elicit before turning back to rest against the surface, "What do you think?"

Chaucer blinked.

Isolde blinked.

Silence.

"Well, as inspiring as your input was I think I'm going to exercise my conversational skills with the local barista, mon cher, because this – " she raised her white porcelain cup before dumping the left overs down the plughole – "isn't going to cut it. Not with the plans I have for tonight's one-man-show of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."

She tugged on her deep green winter coat after plucking it from the back of the couch, tying her cream scarf absentmindedly and grabbing the shiny new set of keys from the table by the door, a thrill of excitement going through her at the reminder of the adventure she'd set herself on.

Isolde tugged the door open, turning back for a moment, "No wild parties while I'm gone!" She called, grinning at the already sleeping ginger mess on her furniture as she closed and locked the door before checking herself.

Talking to her cat.

She'd been in the city one day and already she was talking to her cat.

_Maybe caffeine isn't such a good idea…_

It wasn't a smart idea to walk alone at night, Isolde knew that. The pavement was dirty and shrouded in new frost, the shadows cast by the skyscrapers spooked her a little and the bright lights glared now from their neon holdings. Most of the shops had closed along the road and very few people were on the streets, discarding harried businessmen and women who were scurrying blindly to reach the underground and get to their safe and cosy homes.

From this angle, it was true, Gotham didn't look so pretty. Here she could imagine the street corner crime, the drug trafficking, the prostitute's hoping for a subtle drive-by…

It didn't feel safe.

But staying home and going stir crazy didn't seem like such a great idea either, as Chaucer could testify for her no doubt.

_And besides,_ she consoled herself, _just because the sun's gone down doesn't necessarily mean it's night time…it's only half seven, for goodness sake. That can hardly be considered __**night**__…_

She knew though; she knew what her Grammy would say if she found out. Dark is dark and there's no wiggle room when it comes to that. But Grammy was all the way back in England, back home-

_No. That isn't home anymore, _Isolde chastised herself, _Gotham is home now. And nothing should keep me from feeling safe when I'm at home._

It was a naïve way to look at things, to believe that because you called something familiar it magically became so. But naïve was good enough for Isolde in that moment in time. She was quite happy in her little bubble of optimism, thank you very much.

Well, at least she _was_ until the shriek of skidding tyres and violence of metal colliding penetrated her aura of false-confidence and Isolde snapped her head to the road, where a sleek black Lamborghini had managed to wrap itself around the base of lamppost, causing the structure to plummet through the roof of the car.

Isolde's breath caught in her throat, frozen, as she paused in her place and turned to stare, shell-shocked at the scene. _What the heck? Where did that even come from? I swear this place was deserted like, two seconds ago…_

That is, until the driver's door opened and a dark suit with tousled hair fell out of the vehicle.

_Shit. Priorities, Isolde. _She kicked herself into motion, _life-threatening-situation first; amazement at personal lack of attention span and super-speedy cars later._

Bruce Wayne didn't do good deeds.

Well, he didn't do any that had no involvement with money, anyway.

It was easy really, that bit. Set up a few charities, throw a few fundraisers, help the needy by doing what he did best: acting like a complete and utter tool and having people admire him and give money to his cause for it. Bruce Wayne didn't need to do good things.

If he did, then people may get suspicious.

Because The Batman did good deeds. And obviously had money, judging by the fancy gadgets he uses, spare time on his hands and fast modes of transportation…

Piecing those together meant bad things for Bruce. And worse things for the people he loved.

However few and far between those people might be.

But, no matter how much Bruce tried to separate his personas, no matter how he tried to be one by day and another by night, ultimately he was who he was.

And who he was couldn't stand by and let people get hurt.

He spotted her first.

Striding on the outskirts of the shadows, seemingly bordering the invisible line between light and darkness, Bruce could make out a hazy figure of a woman through the tinted windows of his car. And she was walking alone.

The clock on his dashboard read 19:37. Technically, it wasn't late.

But that didn't mean anything.

If the sun was set and darkness had set in then the streets of Gotham were a playground for the criminals of the city, many in number. That's why you should never walk alone after dark. Everyone knew that.

At least, everyone that knew anything about Gotham knew that.

And, judging by the dark, hunched figure creeping closely behind her, this woman was about to learn that the hard way. He didn't want that.

_I'm not in disguise right now, I'm just Bruce Wayne. And Bruce Wayne doesn't do things for other people that involves getting his hands dirty. At least, not directly…_

_Well, only one thing for it then._

And, without a second thought, he drove headfirst into the nearest public structure.

_Subtle._

The crash was resounding and Bruce managed to weave his head to the left and avoid the tumbling lamppost that sliced through the roof of his car. He didn't care, he'd just buy another. What he did care about is the fact that the hidden figure had snapped his attention towards Bruce, startled and scampered away down the closest back alley at the call for response.

The unknown woman was safe, it seemed.

If not a little dumbfounded by the looks of her.

Bruce's neck was tense, whiplash settling in as the momentary stab of the hit faded away, numbness draining and allowing Bruce to become aware of the ache in his shoulder, caught by the edge of the blunt metal and the cut settling on his cheekbone from a wayward glass shard from the shattered windshield.

He let out a breath. It wasn't too bad, he'd certainly had worse.

_Well, Batman had._

But in that moment he wasn't Batman, regardless of whether he had saved somebody or not, he was a spoilt, billionaire playboy who needed medical attention. And it was time to act like it.

So he opened his door and staggered, almost drunkenly, from his totalled car, still bothering to slam shut the door as though he were annoyed, betrayed by the equipment. As though it were the cars fault.

The motion caused him to wince and roll his shoulder, only partly acting.

_Son-of-a-bitch, that hurt more than I thought it would…_

And the woman had jolted from her daze and hurried across to him. For the first time, he could actually see her and noted that she was, quite frankly, beautiful, and the pain in his shoulder became a very worthy price to pay for her safety; images of just what the stalker had in mind for her playing through his head.

Deep green eyes found his as she stopped short in front of him and boldly placed cold fingers along his temples, forcing him to meet her eyes.

Though he needed little persuasion.

"Oh my gosh, are you ok? That was absolutely awful!" She had an accent, he noted as she searched his eyes with her own, concern embedded in her iris', "Do you need an ambulance? What am I saying, of course you need an ambulance, you were just in a car crash, for goodness sake! Do you have your phone – I've left mine at home but I'd be happy to dial 999 for you-"

She was rambling. Bruce thought it was cute and couldn't help the smirk that wound on to his face. "Sorry, but who are you?" He was being blunt, he knew but it caused her to stop speaking, cheeks to flush under the pink already painted by the cold and her teeth to nibble the crimson of her bottom lip.

Bruce felt a little hazy, but blamed it on the shock.

"Sorry!" She laughed, a little nervous, "introducing myself wasn't exactly the first thought on my mind, all things considered. My name's Isolde, I just moved here, a few blocks down."

She was sweet. Really, genuinely sweet. And Bruce couldn't see her lasting five seconds in Gotham with that kind of attitude. Her willingness to provide information was heartbreaking in its naivety, her stupidity in leaving her phone at home and the sheer fact that she was smiling at him so invitingly…

This could not end well.

"Isolde. That's pretty." He said, but it was patronising, hardly complimentary, "So are you, actually. And it appears that that's a necessity as dialling the emergency contact number for another country entirely wouldn't exactly be the brightest move right now, love. I may be concussed but even I know that much."

She looked at him, shocked and a little scandalised. Bruce could only admit to himself that he felt bad, stood there in the freezing cold, their breath between them coming out in clouds as Isolde's face grew steadily pinker. With embarrassment or anger, Bruce couldn't tell, probably both. He knew she was only trying to help.

And so was he.

Trying to help her see that being nice to the citizens of Gotham really wasn't the best way to take on the city.

"Bold words coming from the man who just managed to hit a lamppost. By definition, a beacon of light. It might as well flash with a neon sign saying 'there's no way any twat could possibly hit me'. And yet, here we are. Congratulations." She gesticulated naturally as she spoke, her hands delivering her anger clearly. He rose an eyebrow at her, amused and condescending. Isolde shot him an indescribable look, "You should really learn to be nicer to people who want to help you."

She was beginning to sound like Alfred. _Though that's another story entirely._

_A problem for a different day._

Bruce was a little taken aback, he hadn't expected her to be so feisty and he wondered for a moment what would have happened if the seemingly-innocent young lady had been attacked. She was a fighter.

And that, for some reason, surprised him.

"Well if you really want to help, kid," He couldn't believe he'd just called her that and by the looks of it, neither could she. But that was good, maybe she'd learn something, "you can use that overworked mouth of yours and kiss the boo-boo better. And while you're at it, a massage wouldn't go amiss." He rolled his shoulders, it genuinely wouldn't, "I'm feeling a little tense."

Isolde looked horrified. "Well maybe if you decided to pull yourself out of the hunched _head-up-arse_ position you might get a little relief. God knows the rest of the world would."

Bruce chuckled. She was funny. And, strangely, he was enjoying this. "This is you trying to help? Insulting me?"

She glared at him fiercely, crossed her arms (though he suspected that was partly to warm her freezing and bare fingers through) and spat, "Call it a piece of friendly advice. And this," she began sauntering backwards, "You can call me walking away."

She turned, the curls of her hair catching in the wind and walked briskly back in the direction she had come, back home, he could only hope. Bruce, true to his persona, couldn't let her have the last word…at least, that's what he told himself.

A part of him just really liked getting her riled up.

"Now _that_ I find both helpful and aesthetically appeasing!"

This wasn't how Bruce expected his night to pan out, when he was driving home from a long day at Wayne Enterprises. A board meeting, a lunch meeting, a treat with Fox and then a quick drive home through the city to his penthouse suite, interrupted by his conscience and a beautiful girl that was, at that moment in time, flipping him off.

He watched her go, following her to the end of the street surreptitiously (again, she didn't notice she had a stalker) and waited for her to enter an apartment complex which she did half way down the stretch.

Bruce felt better knowing she was safe…

And more than a little amused at their transaction.

_Isolde, _he played with her name as he hailed down a cab, _first night in Gotham and already you're causing a stir… sounds like my kind of girl._


End file.
